Jar of Fat 9780300274646

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Special Thanks
Production History
Jar of Fat
A Note on the Fairy Tales

Citation preview

T H E YA L E D R A M A S E R I E S

David Charles Horn Foundation The Yale Drama Series is funded by the generous support of the David Charles Horn Foundation, established in 2003 by Francine Horn to honor the memory of her husband, David. In keeping with David Horn’s lifetime commitment to the written word, the David Charles Horn Foundation commemorates his aspirations and achievements by supporting new initiatives in the literary and dramatic arts.

Jar of Fat SEAYOUNG YIM Foreword by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig Jacqueline Goldfinger Virginia Grise Rachel Lynett Neil Wechsler Leah Nanako Winkler

/NEW HAVEN & LONDON

Copyright © 2023 by Seayoung Yim. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational, business, or promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office). Set in ITC Galliard and Sabon types by Integrated Publishing Solutions. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Control Number: 2022950327 isbn 978-0-300-26801‑0 (paperback : alk. paper) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All rights are strictly reserved. All inquiries, including performance rights, should be directed to The Gersh Agency, 41 Madison Ave, 29th floor, New York, NY 10010. Attn: Skyler Gray ([email protected]/212-634-8113).

For all the fat kids, with love

Beauty is, in some ways, boring. Even if its concept changes through the ages, nevertheless a beautiful object must always follow certain rules. . . . Ugliness is unpredictable and offers an infinite range of possibilities. Beauty is finite. Ugliness is infinite, like God. —Umberto Eco, On Ugliness

Contents

Foreword, by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Virginia Grise, Rachel Lynett, Neil Wechsler, and Leah Nanako Winkler ix Special Thanks  xiii Production History  xv

Jar of Fat  1 A Note on the Fairy Tales  109

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Foreword

F

or the first time in its fifteen-year history, the 2022 Yale Drama Series competition was adjudicated by a panel of judges, rather than by a single judge. This presented unique challenges, the first of which was to decide among ourselves how to manage the reading of more than 1,500 submissions from fifty-six countries. We, the six judges, are all former winners of the prize: Neil Wechsler (2008), Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig (2009), Virginia Grise (2010), Jacqueline Goldfinger (2017), Leah Nanako Winkler (2018), and Rachel Lynett (2021). Working alongside one additional reader, fellow playwright Susan Stanton, we divided the submissions into individual reading assignments of about 220 plays each in the fall of 2021, with the initial task of identifying the top 5 from our respective batches, to arrive at 35 finalists. We then each read all 35 finalists and generated new individual “top 5” lists from the finalists in preparation for a January Zoom-based convening, where, after several months of reading in isolation, we would discuss the finalists and determine the winner. During the first half of our January meeting, we winnowed the thirty-five finalists to a shortlist of eight. We decided, in

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consultation with Yale Drama Series founder Francine Horn, to publicly recognize the entire shortlist, in hopes that showcasing these singular voices and visions would encourage producers to read their exciting new works, many of which were drafted amid the unprecedented shutdowns and social isolation of the pandemic. The eight plays on our shortlist are: All Eight, by Lilly Camp, a fascinating exploration of the power dynamics of nine freshmen women on a college crew team; Tell Me I’m Gorgeous at the End of the World, by Aaron Coleman, a raw and wild piece about two queer men of color seeking a place in their community; Midnight Showing, by Libby Heily, a boldly theatrical play about the career of an uncompromising filmmaker; A Medusa Thread, by Candrice Jones, a poignant exploration of sexual assault and its aftermath from a uniquely Black perspective; a home what howls (or the house what was ravine), by Matthew Paul Olmos, an epic piece about a Mexican American family trying to resist white real estate developers and evade eviction; A Driving Beat, by Jordan Ramirez Puckett, an unforgettable play about a mother and son forced to reconcile their different cultural heritages on a cross-country road trip; The Jersey Devil Is a Papi Chulo, by Iraisa Ann Reilly, a smart comedy about five AmericanLatina friends who encounter two white papi chulos (hotties) on a camping trip; and Jar of Fat, by Seayoung Yim, a wickedly funny, irreverent, and vicious satire on Korean beauty standards. As we discussed the eight plays on our shortlist, one play kept rising to the top: Jar of Fat, by Seayoung Yim. Set in a fantastical fairy-tale world in which two Korean American sisters are deemed too fat to fit in their family grave, the play tackles some of the biggest taboos in both Korean and U.S. society—body weight and beauty standards—through a wonderfully specific cultural lens. The judge who first encountered Jar of Fat in the initial batch of plays found the script radical, honest, and searing. In a time when rage is not al-

Foreword xi

ways allowed to women, especially not women of color, this judge found it incredible to come across a play that held so much rage while also not afraid to laugh at itself and the audience. It was like having a conversation with a playwright who remembered that theater is a playground and was daring her audience to play along. Another judge was delighted to encounter in Jar of Fat a loud, unabashed voice writing about nonsubmissive Asian female characters in a funny, visceral, Artaudian way that crackled with both humor and pain in its treatment of body image issues that the judge felt were more typically reserved for white women. Yet another judge was drawn to the play’s epic structure and vicious satirical voice. As we continued to talk about Jar of Fat, we became intrigued by the questions opened up by the play: Can we simultaneously heal from and honor our traditions? How can we carry our stories forward while also healing from choices we made to survive? What does it mean to hold on to your culture and be critical of generational trauma without centering a Western view? We loved that Jar of Fat doesn’t shy away from going big in a world where smallness—especially for women—is celebrated, even in language. We found the play to be beautifully written, with surprising moments of humor, juxtaposed with piercing, brutal language. For its audacity and singularity of vision, we chose Sea­ young Yim’s Jar of Fat as the winner of the 2022 Yale Drama Series prize. Yim’s work is bold, unapologetic, hilarious, and shockingly modern. We recently had the privilege of speaking with her about her play and can think of no better way to close this Foreword and our collective work on the 2022 Yale Drama Series than with Seayoung’s own words: Jar of Fat is a darkly comedic Korean American fairy tale about the allure and danger entangled within the quest for beauty and thinness. I grew up feeling like my shifting

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weight was the top thing that people remarked about me. I have joked that I grew up with a standard of beauty that is fatless or dead. This became a seed for the play. What are the most extreme lengths a character could go to achieve a beauty and body that’s nearly impossible to reach? What is the cost? What is the allure? Like many children of immigrants, I have felt bewildered by having to adapt and adhere to multiple cultures which at times were at odds with each other. I wanted to look at those contradictions and clashes from a Korean American perspective. In my family, as well as in many other Asian American families, fat shaming is not taboo. It’s often seen as a gesture of love and caring, of paying close attention, which adds a layer of complexity to the pain it causes. It is this infuriating enmeshment of familial love and harm that I wanted to explore in this play. I have been obsessed with beauty standards and fatphobia for some time. These are depressing and enraging obsessions that I’m sick of living with and want to explore using humor, which I find disarming and helpful for cracking open difficult topics. I offer this play as a struck match to burn some of the accumulated rage at what anti-fat bias steals from us every day: grace, space, possibility, and breath. As a Korean American, it is important to me to have this conversation about fatphobia and attractiveness in a culturally specific context to explore the ways these issues present themselves differently from the mainstream Western norms. It is my long-term hope that we collectively dream about and build the capacity to honor all bodies in their everchanging forms.

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, Jacqueline Goldfinger, Virginia Grise, Rachel Lynett, Neil Wechsler, and Leah Nanako Winkler

Special Thanks

Nkenna Akunna Tatiana-Marie Carlo Ina Chang Myka Cue Lisa D’Amour Patrick Elizalde Mario Gomez Michael Hisamoto Julia Jarcho Melissa Kievman Hyung Jin Lee

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Special Thanks

Alina Li Christopher Lindsay Aileen Wen McGroddy Jenny Nguyen Nelson Jules Pashall Ro Reddick Luis Ra Rivera Sophia Skiles Laura Stokes Jesús I. Valles Sarah Wansley Robin Zeng And everyone who gave me feedback and/or worked on the play.

Production History

Northern Stage New Works Now Festival Staged Reading 2022 Directed by Aileen Wen McGroddy Cast Ina Chang Ariel Estrada Sam Hamashima Narea Kang Zoë Kim Christina Liang Roger Yeh Annie Yim

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Production History

Brown University Writing is Live Festival Workshop Production 2020 Directed by Tatiana-Marie Carlo Cast Myka Cue Patrick Elizalde Michael Hisamoto Alina Li Christopher Lindsay Jenny Nguyen Nelson Luis Ra Rivera Robin Zeng

Jar of Fat

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Cast ABILENE f, Korean, child to adult CLEMENTINE f, Korean, child to adult MOM f, Korean, 20s to 40s DAD m, Korean, 20s to 40s LEO m, Korean, adolescent to adult CHRISTIAN m, Korean, adolescent to adult REVEREND f, Korean, 40s to 50s HALMUHNEE f, Korean, a dead grandmother, not physically seen but deeply felt THE ASIAN ENSEMBLE FACE READER JAPANESE MILK TOAST WHOLE WHEAT TOAST RACCOON POSSUM 3

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PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR 1-900-ANNOUNCER PARISHIONERs SCREAMING GIRLS OLD DOLL YOUNG DOLL MOMMY SWAN DADDY SWAN CYGNETS

A NOTE ON CASTING AND PRODUCTIONS

Let’s reclaim the word fat as a neutral descriptor, not an insult. It is my hope that fat actors, fat directors, and/or those who have experienced anti-fat bias are prioritized for casting and cared for in all productions. Please, no fat suits. The weight loss in the play should be depicted theatrically. The play must be cast entirely with Asian and/or multiracial/mixed Asian actors; some should have Korean language skills for pronunciation and intonation. If a production is cast with mixed Black-Asian actors, the production team should consider how anti-Black racism operates within our communities and take care not to cause harm. I am open to conversations about script changes that are related to acknowledging the reality of such racial dynamics. A minimum of eight actors is needed; Asian Ensemble roles can be double cast. No actor is needed for HALMUHNEE.

Only Look at Beauty At a park with a lake. dad kneels, holds an urn holding his mother, halmuhnee [할머니]*, and places it on a small table low to the ground for an ancestral ritual on a picnic blanket. mom kneels beside dad to assist him. DAD  Umma [엄마]** I am sorry I had to cremate you and that you live in such a humble vessel. But I promise you that I will make enough money to buy the family grave that will reunite us. Till then, here are your favorite Benson & Hedges smokes and a bottle of soju. mom lights her a cigarette and pours her some soju. The couple bow to halmuhnee. Sounds of swans squawking. mom sits and nuzzles against dad. He hand feeds her pieces of kimbap [김밥]†. MOM  Hon, we are bringing two souls into the world that will make your Uhmohnee [어머니]‡ proud. DAD  I hope they will be as beautiful and slender as you. Like those swans.

* Grandmother. ** Mom. † Korean seaweed rice roll. ‡ Mother. 5

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MOM  I love how swans look. It’s breathtaking how long their necks are, and their feathery bodies look like white peonies floating on the lake. So elegant to have a white body with just a touch of tasteful eye makeup and a flash of orange beak. It’s a beauty that’s almost holy. But they are such spiteful bastards. DAD  Well, just keep looking at them and let their beauty absorb into our twins’ bloodstreams. MOM  If you really wanted me to absorb their beauty, you could make me a swan pie. HA-HA. DAD  Excuse me? MOM  The Tudors would call them swan pie coffin. You simply defeather, parboil, season, and bake swan meat in a beautifully decorated pastry coffin. DAD  Well, this kimbap will have to do. Open. Aaaah. dad attempts to feed her the end of a kimbap roll. A swan squawking is heard. MOM  Are you feeding me the ugly, raggedy ends of the kimbap? What’s wrong with you? You want our kids to turn out ugly? Beautiful food makes beautiful children. Feed me a perfect piece from the middle. DAD  I’ll be right back. MOM  Where are you going? dad exits. Sounds of intense confrontation and struggle. Angry and grieving swan squawking is heard. MOM  That sounded awful. What’s going on?

Only Look at Beauty 7

dad reenters with a dead juvenile swan in his hand. MOM  Yobo [여보]*. What did you do? Don’t you know swans are violently beautiful creatures? DAD  I caught a swan to make a swan coffin for you. Or swan jerky. Or swan kimbap! You can eat it to make our girls very beautiful. Swan squawking intensifies. Sounds of massive swan wings flapping. They approach mom and dad. MOM  Um. We should go before they rip our faces off. NOW! Panicked, they exit with halmuhnee’s urn.

* A term spouses use for each other.

That’s Gucci? mom and dad wear Korean sheet masks as they rock their twin baby girls. MOM  Girls, let me tell you my absolute favorite fairy tale. Ooh, you’re getting heavy. Maybe it’s time to put you on a diet! HA-HA. This is a story from Italy. Same place that Gucci comes from! Once there were two sisters who were very fat and ugly. They lived together in a small palace. One day, a really hot prince walked by and heard them singing and wanted to meet up and, um, hold hands. The sisters thought this was funny. The first sister went to meet the prince in a treehouse to hold hands at night so he couldn’t see how fat and ugly she was. DAD  They held hands all night long until morning, when the prince finally got to see the fat and ugly sister’s face. He got so grossed out he pushed her out of the treehouse. And she got stuck in the branches. She cried all night until fairies came and cut her down. She woke up to find she was all skinny and beautiful. She went home to her sister, who said, “Whoa. What happened?” And the first sister said, “This is the real me, under all the ugly skin.” And later she said, “I’m gonna find the prince and hold hands some more.” The second sister said, “Please, don’t leave me!” But she was gone. So the second sister went to a butcher and asked him to cut off her skin so she could be free too. 8

That’s Gucci? 9

MOM  But instead of becoming beautiful, she exposed all her organs. She lived a little until dying. The first sister who became beautiful was now immortal, and she lived long past everyone she ever loved. The end. The twins start crying in unison.

You Have to Love Me Years later. abilene and clementine, elementary school age, play with their Barbies. ABILENE  So wonderful for you to come over for tea for my eleventh birthday. CLEMENTINE  So lovely to be here. ABILENE  How is your lover? CLEMENTINE  Great. We just bought a Porsche. I think marriage is all but next. ABILENE  Splendid. Care for a hot chocolate cookie? CLEMENTINE  Smells divine. Thank you. ABILENE  Oh, the tea is ready. Be right back. abilene exits with her doll. clementine’s doll takes two cookies. abilene’s doll reenters with a teapot. ABILENE  Oh, there were two cookies. Did you take both? CLEMENTINE  Yes, I thought they were both for me. ABILENE  You didn’t think to save one for me? 10

You Have to Love Me 11

CLEMENTINE  I thought you had more than the two. ABILENE  And you ate them before the tea? CLEMENTINE  I just couldn’t resist! ABILENE  YAH! WHO EATS COOKIES WITHOUT TEA LIKE A BARBARIC SSANGNOM [쌍놈]*? CLEMENTINE  WHO SERVES ONLY ONE COOKIE AT A TEA PARTY LIKE A DESPOT? ABILENE  How do you have the energy to serve God when all you serve is YOURSELF? CLEMENTINE  You’re just a stingy bitch, and this is, like, the worst tea party I’ve ever been to. ABILENE  Your gluttony and selfishness are BLASPHEMOUS to God. Ominous lights and sounds. CLEMENTINE  I didn’t know this was a test. ABILENE  You never know when God will test you. So you should always be perfect. abilene pulls out a bottle of discount holy water. CLEMENTINE  Please, I repent! I repent!

* A derogatory term for a male peasant, but mostly used in the modern context to mean a disrespectful man.

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ABILENE  The time for repentance is over! Now for your punishment. I’ll extract pleasure from watching your skin burn into vapors with this discount holy water! CLEMENTINE  Please, give me another chance! ABILENE  You’re only sorry you got caught! abilene pours the discount holy water onto clementine’s doll. They both make hissing noises. The doll screams in agony. Vapors rise from the doll’s body as it falls. ABILENE  That’s what you get. Ahh, serving God is so fun. abilene’s doll gets comfortable and sits down. Slowly, clementine’s doll rises from the dead. CLEMENTINE  And what of you? You are Vain! Insolent! Spending more time at your makeup table than at the hallowed pews of church! Satan stuck his forked tongue in your ear, and now you can only hear EVIL. ABILENE  No, I just wanted to look lovely for God! CLEMENTINE  SCOFF! You think of catching the eyes of everyone BUT God. Spending all your money on plastic surgery so you have nothing left to tithe. You are sentenced to be burned on the hot coals of this Korean BBQ grill! ABILENE  I promise I won’t try to look good anymore! CLEMENTINE  TOO LATE, DEMON! NOW, ENTER THE DEVIL’S ASHTRAY!

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clementine’s doll ties up abilene’s doll, places it on a small Korean BBQ grill and turns it on. Sound of flames and crackling. Abilene’s doll screams in agony. MOM (offstage)  Girls! What is that burning smell? ABILENE  Shit! She’s home! CLEMENTINE  We microwaved bacon. MOM (offstage)  Uh-oh. Too much bacon makes you fat, girls. CLEMENTINE  Oh, we’re just chewing it in our mouths for the flavor, but we aren’t swallowing it. Don’t worry. MOM (offstage)  Okay, but not too much. You might accidentally swallow some fat. All right? CLEMENTINE  Yes, Mom. (To abilene.) If she finds out, I’m going to tell her that this was your idea. ABILENE  You can’t snitch; you have to love me. CLEMENTINE  Why do I HAVE to love you? ABILENE  Cuz we ate and shat in the same place for nine months. CLEMENTINE  No, I choose to love you. Love is a choice.

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ABILENE  But so is betrayal. And love is not betrayal. CLEMENTINE  Wait, what? ABILENE  See, love is confusing.

Dad at the Grave dad measures the family grave, which is just a large pit barely big enough to fit a few adults. He has cardboard cutouts of each member of their family in their ideal size. He places them gently in the grave. He then takes them out. The twins enter and, facing him, make a large heart by arching their hands over their heads. DAD  Aw, adorable. Okay, now a little smaller. They each cup one hand to one cheek into a C-shape as they puff out the opposite cheek to create a heart shape with their faces. DAD  Cute. Very cute. Now just a smidge more wee. They use their fingers to create a heart shape in front of their chests. DAD  Just lovely as can be. Good. But daintier still! They use their fingers to create a tiny Korean-style finger heart with their index fingers and thumbs. He sighs in approval. They all hug. He then traces their body outlines on a giant piece of butcher’s paper as he tells a fairy tale. DAD  Once upon a time, there was a Gumiho [구미호], which is a fox spirit with nine tails who roamed in the forests. One day she went into a village to smell some 15

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delicious foods, when she saw the most beautiful man. She fell in love with him at first sight, but sadly he was repulsed by her fox form. In fear, he threw his shoe at her. Traumatized, she went to a mudang [무당]* for advice, and he told her she could change her shape into a beautiful woman if she ate a thousand human livers. ABILENE  Eww! I hate liver! CLEMENTINE  Dark stuff. I love Korean culture. DAD  In a hundred days, she ate 999 livers and only had one left to go. She went into town and broke into the nicest house in the village and tore a sleeping man’s liver out of his body. As soon as she finished eating the liver, her fox fur fell away and she emerged as a beautiful young woman. But to her horror, in the morning light she realized that the thousandth liver came from the only man she had ever loved. The end. ABILENE  Okay, Dad. We’re twelve now, so we don’t need these baby stories anymore. DAD  Sure. You are almost the size of grown women. See this? This is how big you should be when you are fully grown. Not much more. Maybe a trifle less. Okay?? dad holds up the ideal size cardboard cutouts to the girls’ actual outlines made of butcher’s paper which are slightly larger than the ideal size. Smoke from halmuhnee’s urn snakes out.

* Korean shaman.

Talking to Halmuhnee abilene and clementine, now thirteen, regard halmuhnee’s urn. ABILENE  You talk to her. CLEMENTINE  Why do I have to talk to her? ABILENE  Just you do it. I’m the eldest! CLEMENTINE  By, like, an hour! We’re both thirteen. (Beat.) Fine, you chicken shit. Ahn-nyung-hah-sae-yo [안녕 하세요]*, Halmuhnee. It’s your grandchild. We’ve never really talked, so we just wanted to say, “Hey, what’s up?” We heard you could, like, see the future from the grave. ABILENE  Can you tell us our futures? CLEMENTINE  What’s it like to not worry about housing costs anymore? ABILENE  So do we, like, wait? clementine listens to the urn. * Hello, grandmother. 17

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CLEMENTINE  She says, “Get me some Benson & Hedges smokes, and I’ll tell you everything I can see from here.” clementine opens the urn and gets ready to stick her hand in when— ABILENE  What the hell are you doing? CLEMENTINE  She said to look inside her. ABILENE  Look inside HALMUHNEE? Are you deranged? clementine looks inside the urn. She sticks in her hand and pulls out a twenty-dollar bill. CLEMENTINE  She says, “Here’s a twenty for your troubles.” abilene starts screaming. clementine takes her ash-­ covered hand to cover abilene’s mouth. ABILENE Eww.

Being Rich Is, Like, Holy or Something At the Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church, which is located above a college prep tutoring center and a Face Reader’s business. reverend speaks from the pulpit. The twins are now fourteen years old. REVEREND  When you give to the Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church you are building a bridge of faith to Heavenly Father. That is why it is important for you to become rich in your soul, as well as your bank account. Do not bury your wealth—it’s an opportunity. Work, be thin and nimble, so that you may concentrate solely on building prosperity. Even the dead show their success and failures by the size of their graves. Therefore earn, earn, earn to build yourself a lavish vessel towards God. And part of that vessel is your face and body. Your face predicts your future. So parents, make sure you get consultations on your children’s faces to put them on the right path. My dear friend the Face Reader will honor a Lamb of God discount; just tell them I sent you. Now, please, enjoy coffee time. Coffee time and mingling commence. reverend speaks with face reader in a loud, performative manner. reverend’s sons, christian and leo, stand by. Congregants act like they aren’t listening to them, but they totally are. REVEREND  See, that family over there made the largest contribution to the church this month. Ever since the 19

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father’s promotion, they’ve been living large, you know, for God. And I heard you upgraded your family grave. Kudos. FACE READER  Oh yes. I purchased the biggest grave they had available in the best cemetery. Such luxury. We even got a hot tub. We won’t be able to use it, cuz, well, we’ll be deceased. But it’ll look really nice inside. REVEREND  Now, I want everyone to get on your level one day. You’ve done WONDERS for these families. One parishioner has already received seven marriage proposals from seeing you just once. CHRISTIAN and LEO  We feel sorry for the poor people who can’t afford to take their fat and ugly kids to you, Face Reader. FACE READER  Ugh, yes. How do poor people ever live with their unfixed faces? How do they get jobs? And find the right people to marry? You can’t with faces like that. Impossible. (Beat.) But boys, your arms . . . they’re so . . . so weak . . . so limpity-limp like soggy asparagus. You want arms to be meaty, like a leg of mutton fit for a feudal lord. So you get, you know— face reader mimes pumping iron while making gross exertion noises. FACE READER  Meaty arms. Meaty life. UNDERSTAND? christian and leo nod their heads in shame.

Ugly Hole A little later. christian and leo approach clementine and abilene. CHRISTIAN and LEO  Hey girls. ABILENE  What do you want? CHRISTIAN and LEO  You want to hang out? ABILENE  That’s nice to offer. Which seems unlike you. LEO  We got a dude den in the church basement, and we wanna invite you. We got new video games. CHRISTIAN  And porn. Have you ever seen porn? ABILENE  Eww. We’re at church, guys. CHRISTIAN and LEO  Ha-ha. Just kidding. CLEMENTINE  You got any croissants? CHRISTIAN and LEO  Oh for sure. CLEMENTINE  One day me and Abilene are going to open a patisserie specializing in laminated baked goods. ABILENE  SHUT UP, CLEM. 21

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CLEMENTINE  Just trying to speak our dreams into existence, Ab. CHRISTIAN and LEO  Your Umma never lets you have a whole one, huh? CLEMENTINE  We do get the crumbs of her affection. The boys flirtingly hold the croissants up to clementine and abilene. ABILENE  For real, though. WHAT IS THIS? SOME KIND OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WAR GAME? CHRISTIAN and LEO  We just like you. Yeah, like a lot. Let us start fresh. We just wanna do something sweet with you. So how about it? They stand erotically close, almost kissing. The girls get flushed. ABILENE  Look, the croissant, it’s glowing! Glowing! CLEMENTINE  You’re hunger-hallucinating. CHRISTIAN and LEO  You wanna have some fun or what? CLEMENTINE  Won’t hurt to check it out, right? The boys lead them to a pantry closet. As soon as the girls are in, the boys lock the door. CHRISTIAN and LEO  IN THE UGLY HOLE! UGLY HOLE! IN THE UGLY HOLE! WHERE UGLIES GO TO DIE!

Ugly Hole 23

CLEMENTINE and ABILENE  FUCK! ABILENE  LET US OUT! YOU FUCKING YEAST INFECTIONS! CHRISTIAN and LEO  ENJOY YOUR CROISSANTS YOU DUSTY UGLY FUCKS! The boys laugh and run. The girls bang on the doors. CLEMENTINE  Oh don’t fret. We’re going to get them back good. ABILENE  How? Should we kill them? CLEMENTINE  What? No, dumbass. Steal from church. BIG TIME. Take cash from the baskets as restitution. We will get rich off our pain, Ab. RICH! christian and leo dance to a K-pop number like assholes. Some other church girls scream oppah [오빠]* excitedly offstage.

* Older brother. The term can also have a romantic connotation when a woman calls her boyfriend oppah.

Read Their Faces, Predict Their Fortune At face reader’s office. clementine and abilene poke their faces through two holes in a giant hanging white sheet that covers their bodies. face reader occasionally slurps noodles from an instant Shin ramen cup as they examine the twins’ faces. MOM  So, please tell us everything. FACE READER  Please be patient. MOM  Patient? Ha! But we’re Korean. FACE READER  Did the Reverend say you’d get a discount? mom nods. FACE READER  That’s cuz she hopes to get a cut of every referral. And she is so fickle. One day I’m highly regarded, the next day I’m the tool of SAH-TAHN [사탄]*. Anyway, now please, sssh. I need some quiet to concentrate. They slurp noodles loudly. The sound of stomachs growling from the twins is heard as they look at the instant noodles

* Korean pronunciation of Satan. 24

Read Their Faces, Predict Their Fortune 25

lustfully. face reader uses a laser pointer to highlight and point at features of each of the girls’ faces. FACE READER  So, your daughters, how old are they? MOM Fifteen. FACE READER  Almost women. They have traditional Korean faces like big steamed buns, and they have slightly recessed chins. This means they can’t be decisive. MOM  That’s okay. I can just tell them what to do. FACE READER  Or you can get them corrective jaw surgery. Chin implants. Now this one. MOM Clementine. FACE READER  Let’s see your neck, Clementine. Her neck is nonexistent. Her head looks like an olive skewered on top of a sandwich. No neck whatsoever. Hm . . . this one . . . MOM Abilene. FACE READER  Her cheeks are so sunken for being so chubby. This means she’ll have money troubles if she marries the wrong person. I’d consider cheek implants or fillers. Their eyes are also too small. Like strings of fish poop across their faces. Too bad they don’t have better sangkkapeul [쌍꺼풀]*, but that’s an easy surgery. And

* Double eyelid fold.

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they have no aegyo-sal [애교살]* under their eyes, so they look tired and withdrawn. Now their uneven lips predict unhappy love lives. Some lip injections should work just fine. MOM (panicked)  Ha. But procedures are so, um, expensive! Can’t you just crush some herbs and shit in a mortar and pestle and call it good like the olden days? FACE READER  I could, but you and I know that won’t really materially change your daughters’ futures. Aigo [아이고]**, Ajumma [아줌마]†, you are such a natural beauty. MOM  Oh, thank you. I try. I really try. I don’t just wake up like this. FACE READER  It’s too bad your daughters didn’t inherit your looks. They look nothing like you. MOM  Surely my daughters can overcome their homeliness through hard work and virtue? FACE READER  Nah. Ajumma, we’re all going to suffer and die. Focus your resources on beautifying their lives. That’s all you can control—by helping them reach safety in a dangerous world.

* Directly translates to “cute” and/or “charming” fat. Often used to mean eye bags that are considered attractive and are not discolored. It is a soughtout trait in Korea because it is thought to make the eyes look bigger and cheerier. ** A term of exclamation, like “oh my!” † A term typically used to refer to a middle-aged woman. It can be used as an insult or as a sign of respect.

Read Their Faces, Predict Their Fortune 27

face reader extends their hands for payment. mom hands them an envelope. face reader looks at the amount and sighs. MOM  Jjom mahn duh kkakka joo sae yo [좀만 더 깎아주세요]*. FACE READER  This is not acceptable. face reader shakes their head sternly. mom reluctantly hands them more money. FACE READER  Thank you. Here are my recommendations and the card of a plastic surgeon who does great work. Superb work. The best! MOM  Okay, thank you so much. Very helpful. Let’s go, girls. You can come out of your face holes now. ABILENE  What were they talking about? Are we ugly? CLEMENTINE  Did you just pay someone to tell us we’re ugly?

* Please give us a little bit more of a discount.

Halmuhnee Says The girls run to halmuhnee’s urn excitedly. They wear Sweet Sixteen birthday hats. CLEMENTINE  Halmuhnee, we got you more of your favorite smokes! clementine lights a cigarette and holds it up to the urn as if it were a face. CLEMENTINE  Please tell us our future, Halmuhnee. clementine listens to the urn. CLEMENTINE  She says, “One will find endless beauty, the other freedom. Now I’m tired. Question time is over. Go away.” Dang, Halmuhnee, okay. We’ll let you rest. I’m gonna get the air freshener for the smoke. You coming? ABILENE  In a sec. clementine exits. ABILENE  Halmuhnee, will I become the beautiful one? abilene listens to the urn. She then gulps and sticks her hand in the urn. She pulls out a bloody swan feather and looks at it. 28

Halmuhnee Says 29

ABILENE  I don’t get it. Sounds of violent swan squawking.

Interlude Beauty Changes

old doll, a nineties-era doll, stands in a conference room at a Doll Convention. old doll has enormous breasts, a tiny waist, and arms that are bent permanently at a 90-­ degree angle. Her head broke off a long time ago and is on the floor at her feet. young doll, a newer model, enters. young doll’s proportions are “more realistic,” with smaller breasts and wider hips and waistline. Her limbs are straight and make a crackling sound when they bend. YOUNG DOLL  Um, excuse me . . . can you tell me what room the workshop on “Salads and Feminism” is? OLD DOLL (speaking from her head on the floor) You made it! You’re here. Welcome to “Salads and Femininity.” YOUNG DOLL  Um. I think there’s some kind of mistake. I don’t think this is for me. OLD DOLL  We haven’t even started the workshop yet, so how do you know it’s not for you? YOUNG DOLL (muttering)  Cuz your head is in the wrong place, bro. OLD DOLL  What’s that? I can’t hear you so well from down here. YOUNG DOLL  Uh, never mind. Thank you anyway. 30

Interlude: Beauty Changes 31

OLD DOLL  Why don’t you just stay for five minutes and then decide? Looks like you’re my only participant, but no matter! Change starts with just one person at a time. So, Salads and Femininity— YOUNG DOLL  I’m sorry. I can’t do this. OLD DOLL  What’s wrong? Are you afraid of learning how to embrace the full spectrum of femininity? Trust me, it’s not a linear process. YOUNG DOLL  Okay, so . . . Um, sorry, I know we are supposed to respect our elders or whatever, but your kind of femininity is kind of like . . . really dated. Sorry. Like, it’s not realistic to have . . . no head these days. I mean, you have a head but it’s not, um, attached. OLD DOLL  What I see before me is a hurt doll who judges before she plays. YOUNG DOLL  And what I see is a set of tits and ass that were fashionable, like, a hundred years ago. Look, nobody wants what you have, okay? I’m the latest and greatest . . . okay? We are not the same. OLD DOLL  EVERYBODY used to want a piece of me in their stories. And somebody almost did run off with my head. My Sally threw me off her balcony for an intense bungee-jumping storyline—and BOOP! My head popped off as I hit the pavement. I got downgraded to playing servant roles because no head, no story. Did I get depressed? Did I say, Poor me? NO! I got stronger. I believed my beauty got stronger. Every day I said to myself— YOUNG DOLL  OMG . . . please don’t. I can’t. Literally gagging right now. DON’T FUCKING TELL ME TO

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ACCEPT MYSELF JUST BECAUSE YOU OVERCAME SOME INSANE HARDSHIP. OLD DOLL  Oh, honey. It’s okay. young doll sniffles. old doll pats her back. YOUNG DOLL  So your Sally used to take you bungee jumping? OLD DOLL  Yeah. I was in many spy intrigues with high-speed Corvette chases, too. YOUNG DOLL  Ugh. My Sally just makes me go to my 9-to-5 nonprofit job with no paid leave or health insurance. I hate open floor plans, shitty coffee, and commuting. Ugh! Is it because my boobs aren’t inspiring? I want your storylines. OLD DOLL  How about we talk salads? Salads always make me feel better.

Ugly in the Blood mom walks over to dad at the family grave. He is frantic. The grave is smaller, and he can no longer fit all the family cutouts in the grave. DAD  Yobo! YOBOOOOO! MOM  What is it? DAD  The grave is smaller. Why is the grave smaller? MOM  Oh, is it? DAD  AAAAAHHHH! The grave we could afford was already small. But not this small. Did I miscalculate? Oh, no . . . how will we all fit? I AM SUCH A FAILURE. UMMMMMMAA! MOM  FINE. FIIIINE. I sold some inches off our grave plot so that I could pay our debts. And if we sold a little more, we could buy that diet swan powder that’s all the rage. I’m told this will solve our problems and— DAD  HOW COULD YOU DO THIS!? WHYYYYYYY? MOM  For our girls and because beauty is priceless. One shouldn’t be stingy about these things. DAD  It’s NOT WORTH a fortune. 33

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MOM  I’m scared that their faces are in grave peril. DAD  There are graver things we need to worry about than their faces. MOM  Their faces will dictate their futures. I’m proof. If I didn’t get beautiful, you never would have married me. DAD  Darling, that’s not true. What do you mean get beautiful? You’ve always been beautiful to me! MOM  But you don’t know! I used to be a plain girl, verging on homely, who was ignored and always forgotten. Until some swans ripped my face off at the park when I was eighteen years old. They found my nose in a ditch and my lips on a merry-go-round. But this was the best thing that ever happened to me because my parents paid for me to have plastic surgery. And when I got to choose my face, I became beautiful. Suddenly parking spots were plentiful, and everything was paid for me. My beauty is what caught your eye at first. People either ignore what’s ugly or try to destroy it because it unsettles them. And it’s my fault that they are homely; the ugliness is in my bloodline. That’s why I want them to become beautiful, so they know its power. Now you know, do you hate me? DAD  Darling, of course I still love you. All I care about is being together, in here. MOM  I suppose I still love you too. DAD  So you must stop fretting about me losing my love for you or our girls. MOM Promise?

Ugly in the Blood 35

They pinky promise Korean style, by wrapping their pinkies together and stamping their thumbs. DAD  As long as we can all fit, we can be together.

Divination Cake clementine and abilene wait for a cake to finish baking. A timer goes off. abilene removes the cake from the oven with oven mitts. clementine has halmuhnee’s urn. abilene pulls a charm out of her mouth from a bite of cake. It has a liver on it. ABILENE  I got a liver charm. Look. It’s glowing. What does it mean? clementine opens the urn and listens. CLEMENTINE  Halmuhnee says . . . (to halmuhnee) Neh, neh [네, 네]*. ABILENE  WHAT? Hurry up. CLEMENTINE  Liver, liver, liver . . . That you will be . . . wait, what? I can’t hear you. Oh . . . You will be destroyed and reborn. ABILENE  Cool, so I’ll be, like, indestructible. Oh, and I got a hand mirror too. Let me see!

* Yes, yes. 36

Divination Cake 37

abilene takes the urn and listens. She hears halmuhnee and smiles but quickly tries to hide her pleasure from clementine. CLEMENTINE  Well? What does a hand mirror mean? Are you going to tell me? ABILENE  Oh. Um. A hand mirror means you’ll get a little bit pretty. It’s not that bad if you eat it with tea. Moistens the dryness of the crumb. CLEMENTINE  Are you happy that you’re going to be a little bit pretty? ABILENE (lying)  What? Nah. It’s whatever. CLEMENTINE  Oh, I got one. It’s a toothbrush. clementine listens to the urn. CLEMENTINE  She says an unfamiliar toothbrush symbolizes betrayal. ABILENE  Will it be you doing the betraying, or will someone betray you? DAD (offstage)  GIRLS. GIRLS. GIRLS. ABILENE  FUCK! HURRY! mom and dad enter and smell the freshly baked cake. DAD  Oh girls, what in high gluten are you doing? ABILENE  We baked a cake. DAD  Oh, I see. Are you playing house?

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CLEMENTINE  Oh Dad, we have body hair now. We don’t do kid stuff like that anymore. MOM  Oh, my girls are on the cusp of womanhood. But cake is very fattening. DAD  Closer to adulthood means closer to death. HA-HA. Now, look girls. These are outlines of your bodies. Do they fit in the family grave or don’t they? dad holds up the paper outlines of the girls’ bodies. ABILENE  Oh, we don’t fit. DAD  Are they good bodies? Or bad bodies? CLEMENTINE  They’re just bodies. Why do they have to be good or bad? DAD  But when they don’t fit in . . . and take up more space than we can afford, do you think that’s good? Or bad? ABILENE  Do you think our bodies are bad? MOM  Well . . . I like your faces more now that you’re done with hormonal puberty. ABILENE  But do you think we have bad bodies? DAD  Yes, we do. Especially if they’re, you know, too . . . big . . . you know. Don’t we? MOM 

. . . Yes.

ABILENE  Do you think a fat body is a bad body?

Divination Cake 39

MOM  Yes, we do. A chill goes through abilene. ABILENE  I didn’t know that. DAD  Don’t be heartbroken. It’s not permanent if you just work at it. Jjom cham-ah [좀 참아]*. Deny yourself a little, and you won’t know how happy you can be. We only say these things because we love you. dad looks at them and then at the cake. They sadly throw the cake in the trash.

* Just withstand it.

Reverend Promotes Dieting At Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church. reverend feverishly delivers her sermon. REVEREND  Show some restraint. Keep the fat off your thighs so that there is more room on the pews for new parishioners of Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church! Shame on those of you eating more than one danish at coffee time. Let this shame wash over you like warm icing and motivate you to do better. Now, in closing, dear congregation, I want to thank you again for your valued presence in our little church. You have made it what it is today. This is why the next thing I have to say is very difficult. At our last tithing, we asked you to dig deep in your pockets to help us renovate the church in time for Chuseok [추석]*. It has come to my attention that an individual donated a mere twenty dollars for this effort. Shocked gasps from the crowd of parishioners. REVEREND  Is Jesus only worth twenty dollars to you? HUH? I demand to know! Who dares throw a dirty twentydollar bill in Jesus’s face? No name was put on the envelope, so I must ask you: WHO?! WHO!? WHO DOES NOT CARE TO HELP BUILD UP THIS CHURCH— JESUS’S HOME? WHO? * A Korean thanksgiving holiday. 40

Reverend Promotes Dieting 41

CROWD  Uh-muh, uh-muh, uh-muh [어머, 어머, 어머]*! REVEREND  I don’t have to tell you, my church contemporaries in the Republic of Korea all drive ONEHUNDRED-THOUSAND-DOLLAR European cars, live in the most modern homes with servants, wear custom-made suits made by expensive white-people designers. And here, I live among you in a very humble townhouse and drive my sons, Christian and Leo, around in a Camry. And I shop at Ross. CROWD (murmuring)  OH NO! HOW CAN IT BE? REVEREND  Does God want me to represent Him in this pitiful state? Have we finally reached the American streets paved with the diamonds and gold promised to us? Did we get colonized, bombed, and our countrymen forever separated from their families so that we can drive a CAMRY and clean our own toilets? CROWD  NO! NO! NEVER! REVEREND  Then I ask you, if you do not have the courage to step forward, think twice, THREE TIMES about what you donate today in the name of our Lord. Your giving has been very light compared to years past, dwindling each week. Remember, congregation, stinginess is a tool of SAH-TAHN. Only God’s love and grace can bring your family fortune. JESUS! JESUS! JESUS is the Answer! Baskets are coming around now. Thank you. Baskets get passed around. clementine steals a wad of money. * Oh my, oh my, oh my!

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ABILENE  Mom, was it you who put in the twenty dollars? CLEMENTINE  It was totally her. MOM  SILENCE, YOU FOOLS. We’re broke. Jesus is just going to have to wait. reverend makes her way around to mingle for coffee time. MOM  Girls, say hello to the Reverend. ABILENE and CLEMENTINE  Hello to the Reverend. mom lightly smacks both of them upside their heads. MOM  Oh my Jesus. Why don’t you have any noonchi [눈치]? ABILENE and CLEMENTINE  Noonchi? MOM  The ability to accurately assess the social order in a room and act accordingly. GOD! WHAT BURDENS YOU HAVE BOTH TURNED OUT TO BE! For seventeen years you have been boulders crushing my neck. Now, make a good impression unless you want to die. REVEREND  It’s okay, girls. It’s early, you’re still waking up. Thank you for coming. Oh, how cute and plump they are. Only thing skinny about them is their cute little eyes, thin as embroidery thread. A pity they aren’t as pretty as their Umma. MOM  Oh, you’re too kind, Reverend.

Reverend Promotes Dieting 43

CLEMENTINE  Reverend, may I please help collect the baskets? REVEREND  Of course, darling. Thank you for offering. clementine pockets more money from the collection baskets.

Grave Practice The family is at the grave with halmuhnee’s urn. DAD  Yeh deul ahh [얘들아]*! I have a present for you. Hope you like it. My secondary love language is gift giving! Now open, AAAH. dad shoves swan jerky into the twins’ mouths. ABILENE  What is this? It has the texture of despair. CLEMENTINE  And the flavor of dried entrails. This is weaponized gifting, Dad. Not love. DAD  It’s swan jerky that I made myself. Been curing it for seventeen years. It will increase your metabolism. MOM  And beautify your necks. Remember: Beautiful foods make beautiful bodies. The girls take the swan jerky out of their mouths. ABILENE  Swan jerky isn’t pretty. I don’t think it’s gonna work. DAD  What’s important now is that we just need you to get a little smaller. * Hey, kids! 44

Grave Practice 45

CLEMENTINE  But we’ve literally tried every diet. The Sweet-Potato Diet. ABILENE  Mediterranean diet. CLEMENTINE  The Boiled-Egg-and-Black-Coffee Diet. ABILENE  The Cabbage-Soup Diet. CLEMENTINE  Paper-Cup Diet. ABILENE  No-White-Foods Diet. CLEMENTINE  I-U [아이유] Diet. One apple, two sweet potatoes, and one protein powder drink per day for five days to lose five kilos. YEAH, RIGHT! ABILENE  Oh, and for two whole weeks we ate nothing but those tiny disgusting diet cookies that expand to the size of a walrus’s fetus. CLEMENTINE  And you get so bloated that you never want to eat again. Those gave me constipation, so nothing was coming in or out. DAD (robotic voice)  I’m sorry, the mommy and daddy complaint line is now closed. Please call back during normal business hours. Thank you, good-bye. (Normal voice.) All right, girls. It’s time to get into your new ride. Everybody gets into the grave with halmuhnee’s urn. DAD  Stop wiggling.

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CLEMENTINE  We can’t. We aren’t sausages. And this isn’t exactly comfortable. MOM  Death isn’t supposed to be comfortable or easy. So let’s practice. DAD  We’re training you for death. MOM  This is the grave you will be buried in, so you can get used to it. CLEMENTINE  But it’s so small. And cramped. ABILENE  And we could still be growing. DAD  Well, just don’t get any bigger. MOM  Maybe if you train your bones, they’ll contort into the shape and size of the hole. CLEMENTINE  My internal organs are turning into paht jook [팥죽]*. They’re gonna start leaking out my ears, I swear. Okay, enough of this. MOM AND DAD  NO NO NO. The girls struggle out of the grave, sore and tired. CLEMENTINE  I really hate you for doing this to us. Halmuhnee, can you please tell them we are going to be okay? clementine listens to halmuhnee’s urn.

* Red bean porridge.

Grave Practice 47

DAD  What are you doing?! CLEMENTINE  Halmuhnee talks to us, in messages from the grave. Maybe she’ll calm you down. ABILENE  What did she say? CLEMENTINE  I don’t hear anything. Halmuhnee. You there? clementine opens the urn and gingerly puts her hand in. DAD  Get your hands out of my mother! dad and clementine struggle. The urn crashes and breaks. halmuhnee’s ashes scatter everywhere. They look at the mess, then at each other. dad is devastated. DAD  UMMMA!!!!!! I can’t even keep your ashes safe. Everyone starts helping him scoop her up. CLEMENTINE  I’m sorry, Dad. ABILENE  She really did talk to us. MOM  Girls! Stop it! ABILENE  Please don’t hate us. DAD  I could never hate you. My life is unremarkable except for creating this family, which I love more than anything else. I killed everything else inside of me to make room for you. But I need your help now. Please keep us together, for me . . . for us? They reluctantly nod. abilene comforts him.

Fuller Lips, Fuller Lives Later that evening at home. mom approaches abilene. MOM  Umma leul bwa [엄마를 봐]*. Look at me. ABILENE  What now? mom stabs abilene’s lips with a giant syringe. abilene screams. clementine enters. CLEMENTINE  MOM! WHAT IS THIS? MOM  It’s a lip injection. Remember what the Face Reader said about your lips being uneven? And don’t worry, I didn’t spend any money; this is all just stuff I had lying around the house. It’s DIY beauty! CLEMENTINE  BUT WHY? MOM  Think of it as a fun girls’ trip to the spa, but at home. ABILENE  I don’t usually think of giant needles when we go to the spa. That’s actually very stressful to look at. MOM  Don’t worry, it’ll be fun. You girls are growing up, it’s time you learned about upkeep. * Look at mom. 48

Fuller Lips, Fuller Lives 49

ABILENE  Upkeep what? CLEMENTINE  MOM! AB! clementine holds up a container of cooking lard. ABILENE  YOU’RE USING COOKING LARD? MOM  Yaah! You think you are Kylie Jenner? This is fine enough for you! ABILENE  Mom, I feel weird. CLEMENTINE  MOM! LOOK! SHE’S ACTUALLY PUFFING UP. AW, GROSS. MOM  But I didn’t even put in that much. Oh no, nonononono. abilene looks in the mirror. ABILENE  Oh my God. Now I am so much uglier than Clementine. Clem, I’m so ugly. So much uglier than you. CLEMENTINE  It’s really bad. Do something! DAAAAD! dad runs in. He is confused and distressed. MOM  Oh no . . . Yobo, do you think cold cucumber slices will bring the swelling down? CLEMENTINE  No, I think this is an allergic reaction or something. DAD  Oh no. Abilene, are you okay? My poor baby girl!

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MOM  I’m sorry! You told me to save money, so I— DAD  I’m calling for help. Don’t worry, girls! ABILENE  I’m going to be so alone. CLEMENTINE  I’m right here! Not going anywhere! ABILENE  I’m going to be separated from the family as the ugliest one. clementine snatches the syringe. MOM  CLEM! Give that back! What the hell are you doing? clementine injects her own face and makes a guttural groan. CLEMENTINE  I told you, I’m not ever leaving you, Abilene. ABILENE  You did that, for me? CLEMENTINE  Yeah, dumbass. Duh. And shit, once we get so ugly, maybe everyone will leave us alone.

Ugly Togetherness Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church. clementine and abilene’s faces are wrapped in bandages. They unwrap their bandages. They look grotesque and bruised with sacks of fat hanging off their faces, remnants from the cooking-lard injections. They practice singing the hymn “I’ve Got Peace Like a River” in a church nook. parishioner enters, sees them, screams, and exits while shouting for help. reverend enters, screams, and sprays discount holy water on them. reverend exits. The twins are at first shocked but then think this is hilarious. They continue to sing, more defiantly, with their heads held high. MOM (offstage)  PUT YOUR DAMN BANDAGES ON BEFORE YOU BECOME A NEWS STORY. CLEMENTINE  But they itch! ABILENE  We can’t breathe with them on. MOM (offstage)  DO YOU WANT TO DIE? DO YOU WANT TO DIE TODAY? NOW? The girls tightly rewrap their bandages. They resume singing but more dejectedly.

51

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CLEMENTINE and ABILENE (singing) I’ve got peace, love, and joy like a river I’ve got peace, love, and joy like a river I’ve got peace, love, and joy like a river In my soul Halleluiah! Halleluiah!

ABILENE  I am glad we are both the same degree of ugly. CLEMENTINE  Same. Our comparable ugliness is such a comfort. ABILENE  And because, well, we don’t have to compare ourselves to one another— CLEMENTINE  Since we are both equally ugly. ABILENE  Like if you were all hotter than me, I’d still love you, but like I’d feel resentful. CLEMENTINE  And if you were hotter than me . . . Why, I’d feel so lonesome. ABILENE  And if you were hotter, you’d get hit on at the club, and I’d be left in the corner. CLEMENTINE  At least we have each other. We can be ugly together. ABILENE  Oh no! CLEMENTINE What? ABILENE  It’s only the handsomest monsters of Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church and they’re coming toward us.

Ugly Togetherness 53

CLEMENTINE  Ugh. The Reverend’s sons. Maybe they’ll be repulsed by our singing and leave us alone. CLEMENTINE and ABILENE (singing)  “I’ve got faith like an ocean; I’ve got faith like an ocean . . . ” christian and leo enter holding a fundraising basket. CHRISTIAN and LEO  Hey girls. ABILENE  UGH. Not you again. CHRISTIAN and LEO  You got boobs yet? christian and leo dance to another K-pop number like assholes. The twins scream at them. CHRISTIAN and LEO  Flabby Abby and Chubby Clementine, you want to buy some candy? We’re fundraising for a band trip to Disney World. Jealous? Too bad they don’t make the rides big enough for lard bucket piggies. ABILENE  We don’t need to buy candy; we already have some right here. abilene exposes an ankle. clementine follows suit. leo throws his shoe at them, which they dodge. CHRISTIAN and LEO  Eww, moo da-lee [무 다리]*! CLEMENTINE  And boobs. We got those too. ABILENE  You know you love it. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? * “Radish legs,” a derogatory term for thick calves.

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CHRISTIAN and LEO  What? No. NASTY, NO WAY! CLEMENTINE  But why can’t you look away? CHRISTIAN  Because . . . we’ve never seen anything like it. ABILENE  You want to touch my fat ankle? Go ahead, Christian. Touch it. christian is conflicted. He wants to touch the ankle. He bends to try. abilene then knocks him over and holds him down while clementine forcibly squirts Kewpie brand mayonnaise into his mouth. leo is horrified. CLEMENTINE  SINCE YOU LOVE TALKING ABOUT MY LARD SO MUCH, HERE HAVE SOME! TAKE IT IN YOUR UGLY HOLE! ABILENE (to LEO)  YOU WANT SOME TOO, YOU . . . YOU BULLY? leo runs off in fear. clementine takes the fundraising money. CLEMENTINE (to CHRISTIAN)  You say anything, you die. The girls exit. christian starts whimpering. reverend walks in. REVEREND  Duhlohpkkae-weh-guhgee-noowuh-issuh [더럽게 왜 거기 누워있어]*? AISSH. Get up.

* Why are you lying on the dirty ground?

Ugly Togetherness 55

CHRISTIAN  UMMA . . . REVEREND  I cannot comfort you. Because God has left us. Turns out making a living off Jesus is harder than you’d expect. Fell on hard times and Jesus is not returning my calls. Long story. CHRISTIAN  What do you mean? REVEREND  Cham [참]*. I raised you like little princes your whole life. And now you will have to get the hands of a laborer. Meaning you need to get your lazy asses some jobs. CHRISTIAN  We can’t get jobs. What about all our extracurricular activities? I got hockey, band, debate team, robotics, mathletes, and all my other sports. We barely have time to study. How are we supposed to get into impressive colleges? REVEREND  Eeh-nom-ah [이놈아]**, you’ll be lucky if you even get to college. (Beat.) Listen. Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church is no more. Our stingy churchgoers stopped paying their share, so we haven’t been making rent. Been hurtling toward bankruptcy for a while. Oh well, we tried, eh? So, you tell Leo that you both have to quit all your sports and help me sell some Herbalife. Okay? Now, help me pack up before the debt collectors come to take our shit. * Sound to express a bitter realization. ** You punk.

Good Fat abilene and clementine’s faces have started to heal. They help each other remove the remnants of their facial fat injections. ABILENE  We have tried everything and it’s never enough. I don’t know what to do to make them happy. CLEMENTINE  What if we just stopped stressing? There’s good things about being fat and ugly too. ABILENE  Like what? CLEMENTINE  Don’t you think being ugly has built up our character? ABILENE  Who cares about character when no one wants you? CLEMENTINE  I think our ugly made us more resourceful. And did you know there are good fats? ABILENE  Yes. Fat in your lips, a little in the cheeks so you don’t look old. On your ass, of course. CLEMENTINE  But also the fat deep inside your— ABILENE  Are you talking about subcutaneous fat on your lower abdomen? That kind is supposed to kill you. 56

Good Fat 57

CLEMENTINE  No, like the fat that keeps you warm. ABILENE  But we have houndstooth coats for that very reason. Fashion and warmth. CLEMENTINE  But there’s fat that shields our organs. Gives us energy. Produces vital hormones. Fat that protects against trauma. Promise we’ll be each other’s FUPA against the world. ABILENE  I promise. CLEMENTINE  To formally ferment . . . no, foment our oath—take this knife. Slice your hand. And I’ll slice my hand with my knife. And we’ll shake on it. clementine hands abilene a small knife in a sheath with a tassel attached to it. She takes another one out of her pocket. ABILENE  Don’t you think we already share enough genetic material? CLEMENTINE  Shut up. Don’t belittle our blood oath. ABILENE  But where did you get knives? CLEMENTINE  They were passing them out at church when you were in the bathroom. They’re mini-Korean knives from the olden times for women to kill themselves with before men can rape them, on a key chain. ABILENE  Fine. But instead of killing ourselves we’ll kill rapists. CLEMENTINE  Duh, of course. Aren’t they cute?

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ABILENE  It’s not that sharp. CLEMENTINE  So we just have to stab pretty hard. Okay, ready? One, two, three, stab! Cool. So listen, I’ve been stealing from church for years now as restitution for the bullying every Sunday. I saved up enough for an apartment deposit. Time to get out of the ugly hole of our minds and into— ABILENE  OMG. Are you talking about . . . CLEMENTINE  MOVING OUT, BITCH! ABILENE  But, like . . . that’s like, wow. What will we do when we move out? CLEMENTINE  Whatever! Eat whatever we want. We’ll stop worrying about bringing shame to anyone but ourselves. It will be a dead zone for beauty. I’m going to glide my enormous stomach from room to room looking for another big stomach to touch mine at our palace. ABILENE  But won’t it be lonely? CLEMENTINE  I don’t need anybody but you, dummy.

Interlude There’s Always Someone Up the Ladder

possum and raccoon hang out by some garbage cans late at night. RACCOON  I love the way you open garbage lids. You fling ’em open like doors to a mob-run casino. POSSUM  Thanks. I like the way you do your eye makeup. Your whole face is cute. RACCOON  Thanks. But I was born this way. So it’s like waterproof. And damn, Lyme disease is scared of you, with you eating all the ticks in the city. POSSUM  That’s what I do. I find shit and eat it. RACCOON  Hey, it was pretty ballsy of you to go after that frozen steak in the daytime. I woke up when you made that suburban human lady scream. POSSUM  Oh, it was nothing. You’re the lucky one. RACCOON  Nothing? Come on! You grabbed that steak from her minivan so quick before she even had time to set her first load down. I wish I had the ovaries or testes to do something like that. POSSUM  When you’re hungry and afraid, you take risks. 59

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RACCOON  I could never. POSSUM  You mean you never have to. Never mind. You’re going to take it all wrong. RACCOON  I can take it. Hit me. POSSUM  Let’s just go back to complimenting each other. RACCOON  But you only compliment my physical appearance, whereas I have complimented you on the multitude of your admirable animal proficiencies. POSSUM  Cuz you don’t have to have any . . . RACCOON  EXCUSE ME? EXPLAIN YOURSELF. I HAVE OTHER ATTRIBUTES. POSSUM  Not really. You get everything cuz you got a cute face and a bangin’ tail. I mean, look at how thick that tail is. I wish I had that thickness. Look at this shit. Is it a bloodied tampon string in the garbage? Nope, it’s just my janky tail. RACCOON  I still don’t get what you mean. Why does having a fluffy tail matter? POSSUM  Like, you’re hella fine, so you never have to fight for food like I have to. You just get given food. Look, I don’t want your comfort or pity. I want your life. RACCOON  Buddy, it’s not that great. People try to make you into a pet. Taxidermy you into a Davy Crockett hat.

Interlude: Always Someone Up the Ladder 61

POSSUM  Oh to be immortalized BECAUSE OF YOUR BEAUTY. POOR YOU. RACCOON  Yeah, so great to be skinned, salted, and glued on top of a plaster blob. POSSUM  But you could have a nice life, sitting on a pedestal in the wood-paneled study of a rich neoliberal. RACCOON  You’re delusional, man. Rich people don’t put raccoons in their studies. They like rapist ducks or stag heads and shit. Raccoons don’t matter to people with offshore accounts. POSSUM  Goddamn it. And here I thought I was just lower in the pecking order than you. I didn’t know fucking DUCKS AND DEER factor into this. That’s another stratum of beauty I didn’t even consider. Might as well be dead. RACCOON  Wake up! You’re free to roam and eat all the garbage you want, unlike those stuffed fucks. POSSUM  What do I have to aspire to now? How do I ever fill this emptiness? RACCOON  Here, have some expired baloney.

Fat and Ugly Palace clementine and abilene now live in their Fat and Ugly Palace apartment. Perhaps they have inflatable furniture and a landline telephone in the shape of a cheeseburger. clementine handles a cabbage. CLEMENTINE (mocking mom)  “Girls, now is this a good vegetable or a bad vegetable? Remember, beautiful vegetables make beautiful people.” Nailed it. clementine takes a hammer to the head of cabbage. CLEMENTINE  BAD CABBAGE! BAD FUCKING CABBAGE! ABILENE  Why are you hitting it like it hurt you or something? CLEMENTINE  I vanquish all nutritious vegetables. We are free from their tyranny forevermore! ABILENE  I kind of like cabbage. CLEMENTINE  Fine. You can have cabbage. Only the kimchi kind, though. Here . . . now you do it. clementine hands abilene a weight scale and the hammer. 62

Fat and Ugly Palace 63

CLEMENTINE  Come on. This is a Fat and Ugly Palace tradition. We need to commemorate our one-year anniversary of living in freedom! abilene hits the scale with the hammer half-heartedly. CLEMENTINE  Harder! Remember all the times you had to stand on it, and it’d spit out offensive numbers at you? ABILENE  Uh-huh. Bad scale. BAD FUCKING SCALE! CLEMENTINE  HIT IT! HIT IT! HIT IT! THAT’S IT! Aah-sah [아싸]*! abilene pulls out a measuring tape. ABILENE  And remember this odious snake?! (Mocking dad.) “Hey girls, let’s see if you fit in the family grave today . . . especially after all that lasagna you had last night.” clementine lets out a guttural scream. ABILENE  What are you going to do to it, eh? Burn it? Rip it? clementine shoves the whole tape measure in her mouth. But she can’t quite swallow it. She gags and spits it out. CLEMENTINE  That was a mistake. Now what?

* Yay!

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Jar of Fat

ABILENE  Let’s ruin the blender! No more fiber and prune smoothies. CLEMENTINE  No. It makes milkshakes. ABILENE  Right. Order a pizza? CLEMENTINE  Let’s do it! CLEMENTINE and ABILENE Fat and Ugly! Fat and Ugly! We are Fat and Ugly! Fat and Ugly! We are Truffles! Ugly Truffles!

Dad Needs to See You The phone rings at the Fat and Ugly Palace. dad is calling. An answering machine message plays. CLEMENTINE and ABILENE  Hello, you’ve reached the FAT and UGLY Palace. We’re probably snorting powdered sugar and eating Big Macs. Leave us a message or donut. BEEEEP. DAD  Hi, girls. I had a dream about you both. In the dream, your Umma and I were already dead and buried. You two were crying at our open grave when deep-fried butter gushed from the grave’s depths and swept you both so, so far away from us. This is a bad omen. I know outside the protection of our watchful eyes, the world is just your 24-hour all-you-can-eat-buffet. I get high blood pressure thinking about you eating processed fried foods and worst of all, white rice. You must stop consorting with rice. Just tell rice: “You are poison, Rice.” Any kind of carb is the Antichrist, really. When I was a boy, we were too poor to worry about what foods were good or bad for me. I know you hate my nutritional nagging, but this is my love language. Anyway, I’ve been worried sick since you moved out. We miss you. BEEP. CLEMENTINE  Cheer up. Stop caring. We’re living in our Fat and Ugly Palace, a happy place for happy undesirables. 65

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ABILENE  We’ve been free-range ugly, and I’m not happy. My left boob is still bigger than the other. CLEMENTINE  And our generosity is bigger than our spite. ABILENE  We have never been lusted after. CLEMENTINE  But we have a decent vocabulary. ABILENE  My pubic hair is more voluminous than my scalp. CLEMENTINE  A full muff is good for the winter months! ABILENE  My thighs rub together during the summer and look like skinned peaches. CLEMENTINE  And no one can clean the meat off a chicken wing like you. mom calls the girls. The answering message plays. CLEMENTINE and ABILENE  Hello, you’ve reached the FAT and UGLY Palace. We’re probably snorting powdered sugar and eating Big Macs. Leave us a message or donut. BEEEEP. MOM  Hi, girls. Your father won’t let on, but he is going through the toughest time. He lost his job and our finances are in the toilet. He thinks he’s a failure and you know how damaging such thoughts are to the blustery Korean male ego. Listen, girls, if you selfishly follow your dreams without regard to your ancestors, you’re smearing shit on our family name. Anyway, it would really cheer him up if you came and had Korean BBQ with us. BEEP.

Dad Needs to See You 67

The girls look at each other. abilene looks excited. clementine shakes her head. ABILENE  But Korean BBQ! clementine shakes her head again and makes a throatslitting gesture.

Interlude A Toast to Beauty, Health Is Wealth

whole wheat toast and japanese milk toast hang out. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  You’re so fluffy. Luxuriously fluffy. Like a mattress for an NFL star. And your straight square lines are so pleasing to the eye. I can see where you begin and end—giving me serenity. JAPANESE MILK TOAST  And you’re so nutrition dense. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  Hard. Full of whole grains. That isn’t sexy. JAPANESE MILK TOAST  But you have such amazing pores. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  Potholes. I hate these scars. JAPANESE MILK TOAST  Potholes that hold butter’s pleasures. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  But butter wants to be with you. I’ve seen so many photos of you with butter. Sitting on top of you in rapture. JAPANESE MILK TOAST  Sure, but do they really want to be in me? After photos, they just slide off me like a water 68

Interlude: A Toast to Beauty 69

slide. You’re wholesome nutrition. Look at those nuts. Look at that fiber. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  But when people see you, they see happiness, pleasure. They look at me and think “lower cholesterol.” JAPANESE MILK TOAST  I’m not trying to minimize your pain or say I have it worse. I don’t need butter. And butter in the end likes to be needed. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  You have so many lusting after you: jam, Nutella, margarine. Aww sorry, I didn’t mean to say you’d be with margarine. Eww. JAPANESE MILK TOAST  I’ve been with margarine. Margarine was the most generous lover I ever had. WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  What is margarine good for except a quick rubbing? Wait. You degraded yourself with margarine? JAPANESE MILK TOAST  Aren’t you being judgmental? WHOLE WHEAT TOAST  Why? Because I’m the type of bread that helps you shit better? JAPANESE MILK TOAST  As someone who has faced derision for who they are.

Diet Powder mom and dad look at abilene stuffed into the family grave, which has gotten smaller. dad cradles halmuhnee, who is now in a plastic freezer bag labeled “Halmuhnee” in black marker. ABILENE  This is not the Korean BBQ you promised me. I can’t believe I fell for this subterfuge like a dumbass. I like hunger. It gives me something to look forward to. Eating. DAD  Me too. Sometimes I miss wanting to eat so I buy a mound of croissants and dig my fingers into them deep, like I’m trying to fish a marble out of a crack in the floor. I keep waiting for something to bite my fingers off. ABILENE  I can’t stay in this position any longer. It’s gonna cause nerve damage. MOM  Well, yes. I see it must be harder since . . . well, the grave has gotten smaller. DAD  Abilene. You never know when death will take us. ABILENE  UGH. WILL THIS ASIAN GUILTING EVER END? MOM  Not until we die. We’re removing the obstacles to what you really want in life. 70

Diet Powder 71

ABILENE  How do you know what I really want when you’ve never asked me? MOM  Because I can already see you don’t have it. Here. Take this diet powder made from crushed swan bones. TAKE IT. ABILENE  Definitely not. MOM  It’s a miracle, Abilene. Magic. One tiny scoopful with your morning smoothie. You won’t need much. Take it. Don’t be afraid. Trust me. Take this. We sold everything to buy this small vial just for you. ABILENE  What about Clementine? MOM  Don’t tell her. You know how butt hurt she can get. We only have enough for you, anyway. ABILENE  But Clementine and I do everything together. We have no secrets. MOM  And yet you came here without her. You know, this is for her own good too. Maybe it’ll inspire her. DAD  Our family graves are vessels of passage to our ancestors. Your mother, or, rather, WE decided to sell a huuuuuge chunk of the grave to pay for this diet powder. If you don’t take it . . . and you stay looking like this . . . well . . . oh, the shame will follow us into the afterlife. MOM  You don’t want to be left behind, do you? You’re the only one who can save our family from hu­ miliation. You’re special, Abilene. Make us proud. Unshame us.

72

They go to her and offer the powder. After a moment, abilene takes it. MOM  Good girl.

Jar of Fat

Transformation Begins In her room, abilene takes some of the diet powder. She then removes fat from her body, storing it in jars. She looks at herself in the mirror. She looks at the growing collection of jars of fat. At the same time, clementine looks in the mirror in her room. CLEMENTINE  In here, no one’s telling me, “You’re too bigly-jiggly-wiggly,” that I’m a piggy and not a lil’ twiggy. ABILENE  You look better! Finer! This is who you are really meant to be. You are becoming the real you. CLEMENTINE  No more nagging that I need to eat this or not that. Thought it’d be quieter in my head, but now it’s my own voice screaming: “Ugly. Ugly. Ugly. You are Fugly.” ABILENE  A wisp, a hair, a whit, a driblet more and you’ll be so great. Loneliness is a small price to pay when you can fit, fit, fit into a flyspeck or fleabite’s dream. CLEMENTINE  My chin still goes ooooooooooopity-ooop 73

74

Jar of Fat

instead of up and out, out, oooooooooout. But why do I still care? I think my thighs resent the shade of my stomach canopy. ABILENE  Look at my stomach. Wait, what stomach? Oh, you mean this slab of solid granite. Pow! Pow! Pow! CLEMENTINE  I want to look better in pictures. In real life. And in dreams. But I HATE that I want that. Sssh. Sssh. Sssssshhhhhh. Inside or outside my head, it’s all the same. Sssh. Sssh. Sssssshhhhhh. AB? AAAAAB! I need you! clementine approaches abilene, who scrambles to hide her jars of fat. CLEMENTINE  Are you trying to lose weight? ABILENE  What? NO. CLEMENTINE  Then why do you have a tape measure and a scale in your Amazon cart? We agreed— ABILENE  Hey, my cart is private! STOP SNOOPING IN MY CART. CLEMENTINE  And why are you pooping so much? ABILENE  Um . . . privacy . . . but I’ve had a bad stomach bug, if you must know.

Transformation Begins 75

CLEMENTINE  We don’t have secrets. When have we ever had secrets? ABILENE  Leave me alone. CLEMENTINE  They got to you, didn’t they? ABILENE  No, will you relax? CLEMENTINE  But you look fucking skinny. I can tell even though you wear five bulky sweaters at once. You’re really trying. ABILENE  I swear I am not! CLEMENTINE  Have you forgotten our blood oath? To never lose weight or get beautiful. The Fat and Ugly Palace can only hold pleasure, happiness. No self-hatred. ABILENE  Yeah, and it’s been swell. CLEMENTINE  You don’t sound convinced. What’s wrong? Why are you hiding shit from me? ABILENE  God, stop trying to get in my business all the time. I’m just noting measurements for fun. CLEMENTINE  Bullshit. You’re trying to get skinny. ABILENE  OF COURSE NOT. CLEMENTINE  Oh yeah? Prove it. clementine extends an apple fritter. ABILENE  Yeah, this is healthy.

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Jar of Fat

CLEMENTINE  PROVE IT. abilene puts the whole apple fritter in her mouth. ABILENE MMMMM. CLEMENTINE  SWALLOW IT! SWALLOW IT ALL! abilene spits it out.

Interlude Hear-Me-Eat

1–900-ANNOUNCER  Craving something tasty but can’t find it in your town? Your diet giving you the Re­ striction Blues? Developed a gluten allergy? IBS? Now, even if you can’t eat it, you can still hear it. Call 1-900EAR-MEAT to HEAR ME EAT! Each week we’ll eat your favorite foods for your listening pleasure, right from the comfort of your recliner. BBQ pork belly. Sound of pork belly being chewed. 1-900-ANNOUNCER  So much umami. So much wow. Crispy cheese dog. Sound of a crispy cheese dog being bitten. 1-900-ANNOUNCER  Oooh, can you hear that cheese pull? Ddukboki [떡볶이]*. Sound of ddukboki being chewed. 1-900-ANNOUNCER  Jjol gyit, jjol gyit [쫄깃쫄깃]**. Jja jang myun and jjampong [짜장면 and 짬뽕]†.

* Spicy rice cake dish. ** Onomatopoeia of chewy chewing sounds in Korean. † Black bean noodle and spicy seafood noodle. 77

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Sound of noodles slurping. 1-900-ANNOUNCER  Aahh mah-sheet-dah [아 맛있다]* . . . Shame . . . (Sound of Shame.) 1-900-ANNOUNCER  Regret . . . (Sound of Regret.) 1-900-ANNOUNCER  Loneliness . . . (Sound of Loneliness.) 1-900-ANNOUNCER  The crispiness is just so delectable. Now, just $2.99 per minute for the first five minutes. So what are you waiting for!? Call 1-900-EAR-MEAT to HEAR ME EAT NOW! (Sounds of phones ringing and coins jangling.)

* Ah, it’s delicious.

Reunion At a supermarket. christian shops. abilene enters. CHRISTIAN  Hey. Oh my god. Hey, Abby? ABILENE  Oh. Hi. CHRISTIAN  It’s Christian. Remember? From Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church? ABILENE  I go by Abilene. Only family gets to abbre­ viate it. CHRISTIAN  Oh. Sorry. So sorry about my fuckup. ABILENE  It’s really not a big deal— CHRISTIAN  Not a big deal? God, our names are our identity. I just denied your identity. ABILENE  I forgive you, I guess. So how have you been? CHRISTIAN  Honestly, shitty. Working through some stuff. But I feel so much better now that I’ve seen you. Blast from the past, yo. God, you look great. ABILENE  Oh, yeah. I guess. 79

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Jar of Fat

CHRISTIAN  Like, really great. You, like, look really different than when we were kids. ABILENE Thinner? CHRISTIAN  Well—it looks like you’ve been taking care of yourself. ABILENE (lying)  Actually, I got into a car accident and all my friends died in a fire. I got depressed and stopped eating solid foods for, like, a year. Which resulted in the beautiful weight loss you see before you. CHRISTIAN  Oh, shit. My condolences. ABILENE  Yeah, okay. Bye? (Beat.) CHRISTIAN  Do you want me to carry your basket? ABILENE Why? CHRISTIAN  I don’t know. I want to do nice things for you? ABILENE  Really? You never did before. In fact, you made our lives a living hell. Your whole family did. CHRISTIAN  You’re right. I never had access to culturally competent therapy. I do now. Please let me be nice to you for once. She hands him the basket and places a large frozen turkey in it. She adds a giant can of lard. CHRISTIAN  Wait. Why are you walking so fast?

Reunion 81

ABILENE  I hate the public. CHRISTIAN  It’s hard for me to keep up while carrying a 15-pound turkey. Can you slow down? So, listen. You want to go get a coffee or something? ABILENE  So you can bully me in public? Hell no. CHRISTIAN  God, I really traumatized you, huh? I truly am sorry. Jincha, wahnjuhn [진짜, 완전]*. Can you please let me make it up to you? ABILENE  I don’t know. CHRISTIAN  You’re such a beautiful person. I’m sorry I made you feel anything less. ABILENE  WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN SAYING? CHRISTIAN  That you’re beautiful. B-E-A-U-T-Iabilene slaps him. christian drops the shopping basket. Then she gasps in horror, surprised at herself. ABILENE  It was reflex! I’m not used to you being like this. CHRISTIAN  It’s okay! I deserved it. So, about that coffee . . .

* Really, so much.

Skin Deep clementine is on the phone with psychic hotline operator. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Welcome to the Mystical Cosmic Network. This call is $1.99 for the first minute, and 99 cents for each additional minute, fifteenminute minimum. Who in this vast universe am I speaking to this evening? CLEMENTINE  Hi, my name is Cle—Carole. I’m calling from Mountlake Terrace. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  How’s it going? CLEMENTINE  Fine. I mean, not fine, obviously, that’s why I’m calling. Yeah. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Want to tell me about it? CLEMENTINE  I’ve just been feeling sort of blue. And lonesome. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Can I ask how old you are? CLEMENTINE  I’d rather not say. 82

Skin Deep 83

PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Listen, I can only help you with your woes if you trust me and the universe, Cle-Carole. So, what’s manifesting for you, Cle-Carole? CLEMENTINE  My parents don’t get me. Like, they want me to change into something so bad, but I just disappoint them. And I just don’t really have many friends, apart from my sister. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Well, some people don’t even have that. CLEMENTINE  Sure. But lately we’ve been having differences. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  What kind of differences? CLEMENTINE  She’s acting so differently, like, in a way I haven’t seen before. She’s really into getting thin and beautiful. When we’ve always been ugly together. I think I just lost my best friend. I don’t know what to do. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Poor Cle-Carole. Just write positive things about yourself on your mirror. If God’s your thing, go to church. Volunteer. Charity makes you beautiful. And crying about the sorrows of the world is a great moisturizer. CLEMENTINE  But . . . I don’t want to do those things. PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  Don’t let jealousy stop you from living your life. CLEMENTINE  But I’m not jealous. I miss my sister. She’s gone totally off the rails—

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Jar of Fat

PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  All I keep hearing is BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT from you Cle-Carole. Very negative. You can’t attract goodness and beauty if you keep BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT BUT-ing. Okay, so beauty in and of itself isn’t that important to you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And beauty is only skin deep. CLEMENTINE  So, without my skin, I’d be free? PSYCHIC HOTLINE OPERATOR  That’s kind of a super-literal interpretation, Cle-Carole. Listen, why don’t you try expressing how you feel to your sister?

Just the Way You Are leo and christian pump iron in their apartment. LEO  Yo, what do you do think of my pecs? Swole, right? CHRISTIAN  I don’t know, bro. Can you make ’em dance? LEO  Like a ballet. (Beat.) Bro, I’ve been having doubts about the dude in the sky . . . Like, ever since the church went bankrupt, I’ve been lazy about my spirituality. CHRISTIAN  Leo, I got you. We can find Him again together. Pray and shit. I had my doubts too. Like, God has given me everything I’ve asked for, smoking hot looks, a high-paying job, lots of sex . . . but in the back of my mind, I think that I don’t really deserve it. Like, why am I so blessed? It’s really not fair to unattractive, less successful people, you know? I’ve actually wondered, Is God dumb? Imperceptive? Unaware? But yo, when I saw Abilene again, it reminded me how strong my faith was as a child. And I really want to be, like, a good person, you know? LEO  You sound like you’re in love. 85

86

Jar of Fat

CHRISTIAN  What? Shut up, dude. Speaking of, now you need to get out cuz she’s coming over soon. And I need to freshen up. leo makes teasing kissing sounds as he exits. Later. abilene and christian sit on the sofa together. CHRISTIAN  I noticed you didn’t say grace before our candlelit dinner. You just pretended. ABILENE  I stopped believing in Jesus when you and your brother locked us in the church closet. You bullied me into atheism. CHRISTIAN  Damn, we were little shits. I’m sorry. ABILENE  It’s fine, it’s whatever. What? CHRISTIAN  You just look so beautiful. ABILENE  Um. What about hot? CHRISTIAN  Yes. So hot. So sexy. ABILENE  Ugh, the male gaze is so . . . cringe. Fuck it. abilene kisses christian passionately, tongues are involved. Violins swell. christian pulls out a globule of fat from his mouth. CHRISTIAN  What the . . . ABILENE  Oh shit, is that my fat? I’ve never had a diet work so well. Fat is literally melting off my body! CHRISTIAN  AND INTO MY MOUTH.

Just the Way You Are 87

ABILENE  This diet powder really fucking works. Would you look at that? CHRISTIAN  But, um, I don’t want you to lose too much weight. I like how you are, actually, and really whatever size you are. ABILENE HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. CHRISTIAN  Why are you laughing? ABILENE  I’m sorry. It’s just “I like how you are, actu­ ally, and really whatever size you are.” Fucking HILARIOUS, man. Um, can I have my fat back? It’s like part of my set, my collezione*.

* Collection (Italian).

The Fracture At mom and dad’s house. abilene places globules of fat into jars that she hands to dad, who puts them on the shelf. The shelf droops from the weight. mom and dad look at the growing display. MOM  Abilene. Oh my god. You look beautiful. DAD  Like a mummified string bean! Right, Yobo? ABILENE  Oh, thanks. MOM  I knew you could do it. I knew it. DAD  Look at my genes reaching their full potential! MOM  OUR GENES. ABILENE  Well, the diet powder you gave me really helped. I also drank lots of water. And kept my diet mainly organ meat and veggies. No carbs. MOM Incredible. DAD  I’m so proud of you, Ab. You are going to get us all to fit in our grave. ABILENE  Dad. If we didn’t have to worry about fitting in there, what do you think we’d be worrying about 88

The Fracture 89

instead? Or what do you think you’d be dreaming about? Dad. Are you okay? A long pause. DAD  Oh, but I stopped asking questions like that a long time ago. Who has the time? clementine emerges from a hiding place, enraged. CLEMENTINE  Aren’t you going to compliment my weight loss? Her family shrieks in surprise. MOM  Weight loss? What weight loss? ABILENE  Clem, did you follow me? CLEMENTINE  I lost weight too. It’s just that I gained it all back. MOM  It’s rather exhausting having to cheer you on for the smallest little thing. Abilene, you’ll be such an inspiration to all the other fat people of the world. Including those in our family. CLEMENTINE  What the fuck. ABILENE  I know you’re pissed. But I did it for— CLEMENTINE  No, no, no. Don’t you dare say it was for me. DAD  Clementine. We’ve missed you. Why didn’t you come sooner?

90

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CLEMENTINE  To get away from all this damage! (To abilene.) So you’ve been taking diet powder? I knew it wasn’t a stomach bug, you liar. How could you do this to me? We were supposed to do everything together. ABILENE  Clem. I just. I just wanted to feel what it was like to look this way. And it’s just as everyone says. It’s wonderful. And feels powerful. CLEMENTINE  Seriously? You betrayed me for a feeling? You guillotined my heart. Like, who are you? Did I ever know? ABILENE  Maybe you should have paid closer attention. All I ever do is what YOU want. No more. CLEMENTINE  . . .

Swan Liver abilene sits on the floor at a small portable gas Korean BBQ grill, cooking some livers. There are dead swan bodies around her. She pours herself shots of soju as she grills the meat. ABILENE  No one ever warns you about how being too beautiful is a liability. When you’re ugly, people want to fix you or get rid of you. Or pretend you don’t exist. But when you’re beautiful, people admire you so much they’ll claw at your clothes and even under your skin. They will rip thick slabs off your being and sell your residue for rock bottom. But now, as soon as they get that look in their eyes, that famished, greedy look, is the time I like to— She holds up her knife. A swan walks by. abilene twists its neck, stabs it, and plucks its liver to cook on her grill. ABILENE  Swan meat is good and all, but I’m ready to level up.

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Bye, Leo leo pumps iron early in the morning. abilene enters quietly. LEO Abilene? abilene slinks out of the shadows with blood on her lips. ABILENE  Well, hello there, Leo. LEO  Hey. Christian’s not here right now. You know I’d have seen you sooner, but Christian’s always like, “NAH MAN, it’s too early in the ’ship! YOU CAN’T SEE HER YET!” Well, damn . . . Haven’t seen you since our time at Lamb of God Sunrise Halleluiah JESUS IS KING Korean Church. Those were the days. ABILENE  Happy times, was it? For you? LEO  Yeah, yeah, actually. I felt like I had a sense of purpose, community, you know? But as I get older, I realize that we are pretty alone, and, like, community isn’t promised to us? But dude, I was such an asshole when we were kids, huh? Yo, I’m sorry . . . ABILENE  You’re sorry? LEO  Yeah. Like mucho, mucho regret, bro. I never said that, huh . . . But look, I want you to know that Christian 92

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is just so happy being with you. And it makes me happy that you make each other happy, you know? ABILENE  Yeah. So happy. abilene notices leo’s back, which is now glowing. She moves toward him, mesmerized by the glow. ABILENE  This is like a sign, right? It’s a sign. I’m ascending. LEO  Huh? What? Ascending how? She pulls out her little knife on a keychain. LEO  Cute knife. I can talk cutlery all day. What you got there, full or partial tang? That’s a real cute, girly knife you got there. Probably not a full tang. That’s okay, though. ABILENE  Hmm. But the blood. Well, it can’t be helped. abilene holds the knife to leo’s throat. He screams. LEO  SORRY! SORRY! SORRY! SO SORRY! The lights go out. Sounds of blood gushing. ABILENE  Why am I so hungry still?

Blood Bath Ballet Abilene’s world becomes awash with blood as she sets out on a human-liver-eating spree. Bone fragments, human fat, torn muscle, arteries, and gristle hit the ground, forming a pulsating, bloodied monument at her feet.

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Bye, Christian christian serenades abilene with a romantic ballad or reads her poetry (that’s in the public domain). She intermittently and surreptitiously takes more diet powder. He then looks at an old bloodstain on his floor and groans. CHRISTIAN  Ugh, I’m pissed at Leo cuz he left a hugeass wine stain on the floor without cleaning it. ABILENE  Maybe it’s not wine. Maybe it’s BLOOD! MAYBE HE’S DEAD? AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Just kidding. Where is he, by the way? CHRISTIAN  He texted me saying he was going backpacking to “find himself,” and that was, like, a month ago. Should I be worried I haven’t heard from him since? ABILENE  Um, maybe he doesn’t have cell service? And he’s just having a real good time? abilene stealthily pulls out leo’s phone and texts. christian’s phone dings. CHRISTIAN  Speak of the devil. “Bro, I’m having a real good time here in nature and shit. Sorry I haven’t texted back much. Iffy cell service. Don’t worry bout me. I AM NOT DEAD HA-HA.” Well, that’s a relief.

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ABILENE  Glad you feel at peace. So, what did you want to talk to me about? CHRISTIAN  Oh, I’m kind of nervous about saying it. Okay . . . Here goes. I love you. In fact, I loved you the moment I saw you again. ABILENE  Um. Wow. We haven’t dated that long. CHRISTIAN  I know. But isn’t it great to have this kind of certainty from a man within a single financial quarter? ABILENE  Are you serious? CHRISTIAN  Yeah. I want you to stop sucking in your stomach. Don’t turn the light off when we make love. Because I love seeing all that jiggles, if it’s part of you. I just love your face with or without chins. I just love you. ABILENE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHA CHRISTIAN  PLEASE stop. Stop laughing. ABILENE  I’m sorry. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. “I just love you.” CHRISTIAN  It’s true! ABILENE  Okay, maybe since I’ve gotten skinny. CHRISTIAN  I always liked you being a little toe-ng toe-ng [통통]*. I was just afraid to declare preferences that are outside the dominant society’s acceptance before. * Plump or chubby.

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ABILENE AHHAHAHAHAHA! abilene looks at christian’s back, which is now glowing. ABILENE  Whoa. Your back. CHRISTIAN  Stop. You’re tickling me. ABILENE  But your back. It’s glowing. CHRISTIAN  What are you talking about? Hey! Can we just finish talking before you fondle me? I’m being emotionally vulnerable right now. ABILENE  “As soon as she finished eating the liver, she emerged as a beautiful young woman.” I’m gonna get it. CHRISTIAN  You’re saying really weird shit. What’s going on, Ab? abilene knocks him to the floor. She extracts her knife and swiftly cuts christian’s skin where his liver would be. The wound emits a strong ray of light, sort of like the bat signal. ABILENE  Welcome to the ugly hole, Christian. CHRISTIAN  OH MY GOD, ABILENE! WHAT THE FUCK? christian dies. abilene holds up his liver. ABILENE  It’s gorgeous and so juicy. Bigger than your brother’s. abilene bites the liver. clementine bursts in.

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CLEMENTINE  ABILENE! You’re seriously dating our childhood torturer? You’ve literally stopped living at our place for like a month. Have you just moved in here, with him? Like, how low can you go? clementine finally sees abilene crouched over christian’s bloody body. She screams. CLEMENTINE  HOLY FUCK HOLYFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. ABILENE  How did you find me? Oh, duh! I share my phone location with you. CLEMENTINE NONONONONONONONONO­ NONONO. ABILENE  Look at Christian’s liver, Clem. It’s the ultimate paleo. Fresh organic meat. The Greeks believed the liver is indestructible and the home of life, soul, and intelligence. Want some? As you can see, there’s plenty to go around! CLEMENTINE  Abilene . . . I don’t want this. You CAN’T want this! And if you do, I don’t know you anymore. ABILENE  We’re sisters. We need to be there for each other, even when it’s scary. You know how Koreans say your liver is big when you are being bold and brave. Clem, now is not the time for your liver to shrink to the size of a bean. Okay? I love you. Where are you going? clementine runs out screaming. Abilene calls out to her. ABILENE  REMEMBER! You can’t snitch; you have to love me.

Back at the Lake mom and dad sit on the bench at the lake. A squawking swan swims to the edge. He comes closer to them. mom removes a donut from her purse and throws a crumb to the swan. The swan approaches while hissing. More swans emerge from the lake until they become a mass of swirling white feathers, beaks, and legs encroaching upon mom and dad, who are surrounded, no longer visible. Suddenly the first swan leaps up and knocks dad into the lake and pushes him deep underwater with his massive wings. He pushes until dad emerges from the water no more. mom screams, but dad is gone. She grabs the neck of the killer swan, but he overpowers her. He pecks mom to death, plucks out her eyeball, and flies off with it. Swan feathers erupt from the family grave.

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Cut off My Skin clementine looks into a mirror. She produces her small Korean knife. She presses the blade onto her flesh to skin herself. CLEMENTINE  “So she went to a butcher and asked him to cut off her skin so she could be free too. But instead of becoming beautiful, she exposed all her organs. She lived a little before dying.” Suddenly, clementine hears the violent squawking from a bevy of swans flying overhead. She breaks free from her dark bewitchment and drops the knife. Lights out.

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Interlude Swan Melodrama

mommy swan sits atop a lake at her nest with her sleeping cygnets. daddy swan glides in, agitated but trying to appear calm. MOMMY SWAN  Where have you been? DADDY SWAN  SSSHH. Foraging. I tried to find our cygnets some eel grass and bugs. But no such luck. MOMMY SWAN  You were gone for a long time. DADDY SWAN  Why can’t you say, “What a great provider you are. Thank you,” instead of the accusatory “You were gone for a long time”? MOMMY SWAN  Nobody is giving me a trophy for herding our adorable burdens on my own for hours on end. You go foraging once for the kids without bringing back anything, and you still need a parade thrown in your honor. DADDY SWAN  The pickings on the lake have been slim lately, you know that. The cygnets awake and start gliding toward their parents to cuddle them.

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MOMMY SWAN  You look too unkempt and ruffled for foraging. And your eyes beam shamelessness. What were you really doing? DADDY SWAN  I-I—can we talk about this later? MOMMY SWAN  Listen, I know it’s our swan culture to mate for life. But if you want to explore an open relationship, I am for it. Been thinking things have been stale for a while, anyway. DADDY SWAN  Wait, what? Stale? MOMMY SWAN  I’d just prefer you be open with me about your wants and desires. Okay? DADDY SWAN  I have NEVER stepped out on you. Ever. MOMMY SWAN  Listen, it’s not going to work if you keep lying to me. DADDY SWAN  You really think things have gotten stale? MOMMY SWAN  Babe, there’s a reason why monogamy and monotony start out sounding the same. If you get a lover, I want one on the side too. Like a spicy condiment. DADDY SWAN  I’m late because . . . I killed today. The cygnets say, “Kill?” DADDY SWAN  Some other humans saw what I did and started shooting at me. I flew off for a few hours until they left.

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MOMMY SWAN  Why didn’t you say so instead of letting me say damaging things about our relationship? DADDY SWAN  I didn’t want to say it in front of the kids, but you kept insisting. MOMMY SWAN  Whatever, they aren’t going to understand what you’re saying. The cygnets say, “Kill.” DADDY SWAN  I saw two humans sitting too close to our nest. I couldn’t have them hurting you or our babies. So I went up to them to scare them off, when I suddenly recognized them. They are the fuckers who killed our first child together, those many years ago. MOMMY SWAN  YOU SAW THEM AGAIN? I HOPE THEY SUFFERED IN DEATH. I wish you had come and gotten me. I should have liked to peck their faces off myself. DADDY SWAN  There wasn’t time. I couldn’t let them get away again. I knocked one of them into the water and I basically sat on its face till it drowned. The other one grabbed my neck. So I ripped that one’s face off and plucked its eyes out. Anyway, bon appétit, my love. daddy swan rolls an eyeball toward her. MOMMY SWAN  Oh, babe. I’ve never had eye before. And you have avenged us. I love you. The cygnets chirp, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” in a crescendoing chorus.

Something Back clementine carefully places halmuhnee’s ashes from the plastic freezer bag into a cookie jar. CLEMENTINE  Halmuhnee. Please talk to me. clementine listens to the cookie jar. She exhales deeply and reaches inside the urn. She pulls out a plentiful succession of her favorite foods and objects: a croissant, a donut, and a jar of kimchi. CLEMENTINE  Thank you. I love you, too. I wish I could give you something back. clementine hugs halmuhnee and listens to her speak. The cookie jar lights up. clementine pulls out a picture of her family. CLEMENTINE  No, I won’t. Can’t. The cookie jar violently convulses, tipping over. clementine catches it before it crashes. CLEMENTINE  Halmuhnee, please stop. Please stop. I can’t keep obsessing about dying while I’m living. It hurts. Their bones never ask for forgiveness. And neither will Abilene in the flesh. Love doesn’t cancel that out. Halmuhnee? 104

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A beam of light emanates from the cookie jar. clementine touches the light with her hand. CLEMENTINE  Okay. Halmuhnee. Okay. I’ll go. I’ll be dead the way you want me to be. But first, I’m going to stay alive any which way I want. You’ll all just have to take me as I am and will be.

Last Time Years later. clementine, much older and near death, stands by the family grave carrying her parents’ bones and halmuhnee’s cookie jar. abilene enters, still appearing young. ABILENE  I’ve missed you. CLEMENTINE  I’ve missed the old you. The one that wasn’t a bitch. ABILENE  It’s been decades, and this is the first time you’ve talked to me. CLEMENTINE  I was pissed at you for a long while, but I figured I should see you before I kicked the bucket. ABILENE  Whatcha got there? CLEMENTINE  Mom and Dad. Well, their bones at least. The swans pecked everything else off. And since they’re both just bones now, there’s enough room for me to fit in the grave without losing weight. Halmuhnee’s here too. ABILENE  Mom’s finally smaller than a size zero. Just like you always wanted, huh, Mom? I’m sorry that this is what our lives amounted to. What a cramped life we worked toward. How are you? 106

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CLEMENTINE  Me? I’m content. ABILENE  Why? You look fucking horrible. CLEMENTINE  I lived and will die on my own terms. I got so old, but you didn’t. You look amazing. ABILENE  Eternal youth or whatever is overrated. So what else you been up to? CLEMENTINE  Just living my life. And dying, duh. You know, after you started taking the diet powder, I was going to cut off all my skin, like the sister in the Italian fairy tale that Mom would tell us? I was so angry at you that I wanted to cut my jawbone off. That way, I’d never speak your name again. But I decided I wanted to keep living to spite you instead. ABILENE  I’m glad you did. Looks like you had a full life. Did you end up staying in the Fat and Ugly Palace? CLEMENTINE  Yeah, and it was fucking awesome. I think you would have liked it. How has it been being beautiful like you always wanted? I used to want revenge, but now, I truly hope you are happy. ABILENE  For a while it was great; I had lots of friends and lovers. But sooner or later, I’d get the urge to kill them and eat their livers so I could stay looking like this. Which can get lonely, you know? Anyway, I should have said a long time ago, I’m sorry. But we can be together in the afterlife. I’m finally ready for a good rest now, too. Living this long has been exhausting. CLEMENTINE  But you’re still alive.

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clementine gently lies down in the grave with the bones and the cookie jar. ABILENE  Yeah, so? I’d rather be with my dead family than alone with strangers. Halmuhnee, I’m sorry for not visiting sooner. But I’m glad to be reunited with you and the family again. Clem, move over. I want to go with you. clementine listens to the cookie jar. CLEMENTINE  She says you can’t stay. ABILENE  But I want to. CLEMENTINE  There isn’t space for you, especially since you are alive. ABILENE  But the problem is, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to die. I tried to die so many times. But it’s no use. See? abilene stabs herself a few times with her small Korean knife to no avail. She keeps living. CLEMENTINE  That’s bananas. The grave lights up. clementine listens to halmuhnee again. CLEMENTINE  Sorry, Abilene. Halmuhnee says, “Take care of yourself. Come visit us. We won’t have a headstone, but they’re turning this cemetery into a park, so we’ll be under a cool playground slide. Love you.” The grave closes as abilene watches. She is alone. END OF PLAY

A Note on the Fairy Tales

The story mom tells in “That’s Gucci?” is a retelling of a traditional fairy tale inspired by the version found in Carmen Maria Machado, “The Old Women Who Were Skinned,” Fairy Tale Review 12 (2016): 120–24. https://doi.org/10.13110/fairtale revi.12.1.0120. Inspiration for the fairy tale in “Dad at the Grave” was drawn from a variation of the traditional Korean Gumiho fairy tale. For more on this figure, see Charles La Shure, “Kumiho,” Pantheon (April 21, 2001), https://pantheon.org/articles/k /kumiho.html.

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